Affordance

"Afford" redirects here. For other meanings, see Afford (disambiguation).
The design of tea cups and a teapot suggest their respective functions
A door knob shaped to reflect how it is used, an example of perceptible affordance
Affordance is one of several design principles used when designing graphical user interfaces.

In psychology, affordance is what the environment offers the individual. In design, affordance has a narrower meaning; it refers to possible actions that an actor can readily perceive.

American psychologist James J. Gibson coined the term in his 1966 book, The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems,[1] and it occurs in many of his earlier essays.[2] His best-known definition is from his 1979 book, The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception:

The affordances of the environment are what it offers the animal, what it provides or furnishes, either for good or ill. ... It implies the complementarity of the animal and the environment.[3]

The word is used in a variety of fields: perceptual psychology; cognitive psychology; environmental psychology; criminology; industrial design; human–computer interaction (HCI); interaction design; user-centered design; communication studies; instructional design; science, technology, and society (STS); sports science; and artificial intelligence.

  1. ^ J. J. Gibson (1966). The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems. Allen and Unwin, London.
  2. ^ E.g., J. J. Gibson (1975). 'Affordances and behavior'. In E. S. Reed & R. Jones (eds.), Reasons for Realism: Selected Essays of James J. Gibson, pp. 410-411. Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, 1 edn.
  3. ^ J. J. Gibson (1979). 'The Theory of Affordances'. The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), Boston. p. 127.